


a prayer for which no words exist

by Murf1307



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Black Eye, First Kiss, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Post-Canon Fix-It, Relationship Issues, Self-destructive habits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:11:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4444844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex has taken up getting into fights.  Armando has taken up putting him back together.  One night, it all comes to a head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a prayer for which no words exist

**Author's Note:**

  * For [visiblemarket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/visiblemarket/gifts).



> dedicated to [morethanonepage](http://morethanonepage.tumblr.com) on tumblr. she's responsible for making me think about this situation, and now i'm sad about alex being a homosexual disaster in the sixties and armando not really being sure how to handle it.

The rain thrums against the long, high windows at the front of the mansion.  The wind is low, a constant hum, and maybe it's the enhanced hearing that makes it so obvious, or maybe it's just 'cause he's listening for something through it.    
  
Two in the morning, of course he's listening for something.  
  
He sighs, cracks his knuckles with his palms face-up, and keeps waiting.  He's a patient man -- he has to be, what with all the waiting they've all been doing these last five years.  First waiting for a war to start, then waiting for a a different war to end.  
  
The war is far from over, and every morning, someone gets the mail and lets out a sigh of relief.  Tomorrow it'll be his turn.  
  
Right now, though, he's waiting for Alex.  Alex goes out some nights, all thrum and hum like the weather, and then he comes home, usually more beat up than he was when he left.  
  
Armando knows somebody's got to be there to patch that boy back together when he shakes apart like that.  
  
Finally, the door creaks open.  Armando keeps leaning his hip against the edge of the counter.  Alex will come this way, looking for bandages or ice, and Darwin will pretend he just can't sleep.  It's true enough, he supposes.  
  
This is what they've become, and Armando thinks it could be worse.  He's only been back for three months, having spent four and a half years pulling his own self back together, searching out the plasma sunshine in the static of creation.  He found it, anchored himself, and made his way back to the world he knew.  
  
Alex comes into the kitchen, looking world-weary.  Armando sees that look everywhere in this house these days, but right now he's most concerned about the bloody mouth and nose Alex is also wearing, and his blackened eye.    
  
God only knows what kinds of bruises he's hiding under his jacket and that white, _Streetcar Named Desire_ -tight t-shirt.  
  
"Still up?" he asks, a little slurred.  
  
"Mhmm," Darwin murmurs.  "You want some help with your face?"  
  
They don't talk much, but the cursory request is enough of an excuse.  Alex nods, and hoists himself onto the counter.  It makes him half a head taller than Armando, and for a moment he wonders if that means anything.  
  
But even if it does, that doesn't matter much.  Armando falls into his part of this little routine -- he pulls the gauze, the rubbing alcohol, the bandage tape out from under the sink and steps between Alex's spread knees to get a closer look at tonight's battle-scars.  
  
His nose doesn't look broken, at least, which is good enough to start with.  Armando wipes away all the blood that'll come away easy, finding it came more from Alex's nose than his split, bruised lip.  
  
Armando works with deft, practiced hands as he wets a paper towel to dislodge the crusted-on blood that's left.  Alex's lip is starting to scab up, which is good, and it doesn't look like he'll have to use the rubbing alcohol tonight.  He steps back to pull a small bag of ice out of the freezer and then returns, carefully laying it over Alex's eye.  
  
Alex is watching him, and presses his hand to the bend of Armando's elbow, a touch like a million others.  
  
They only touch like this.  Armando's realized this for going on a month now.  Alex looks at him with sad eyes and hangs on to him like this only on nights like tonight.  
  
It's an excuse.  Armando knows it.  But he doesn't try to touch Alex, either, outside of this, so it might be part his fault, too.  
  
He sighs.  “You gotta stop doing this, hotshot…"  
  
Alex closes his eyes for a second, exhales.  “I — it’s not an option.”  
  
“Tell me why?”  
  
“Can’t.”  
  
There’s a lot of things that they can’t do.  Nights like tonight are where they dance on that edge, like now.  There’s scarcely a half a foot between their faces, and Alex is looking at him like he’s the only thing in the world —  
  
Well, Armando does his best to be a good person, and it’s clear Alex isn’t ready to take what the next step would be.    
  
So he won’t lean in and take that step.  Instead, he just frowns a little.  “I won’t push, then.”  
  
Alex still winces, like he thinks he’s disappointed him.  
  
It’s a hot rush of shame when Armando realizes that he has, a little.  Disappointment colors this whole routine like smoke, even though he does his damnedest not to let it show.  
  
He wants Alex to feel safe with him, that’s all.  That’s all he really wants.  
  
“Thanks,” Alex mumbles, nodding a little, almost dislodging Armando’s hand and the bag of slowly melting ice.  
  
Armando doesn’t like to think about it, about the fact that Shaw _did_  kill something that night, when he shoved that ball of energy down Armando’s throat.  He killed whatever they could’ve been, and that’s something that just isn’t coming back from the dead, even though Armando did.  
  
“You’re welcome, hotshot,” he murmurs.   
  
Alex closes his good eye, shoulders slumping just a little.  He’s almost relaxed, some of the tension draining.   “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits softly.  
  
“Then why keep doing it?”  
  
“I don’t know how to do anything else.”  
  
Armando tips up Alex’s chin with his free hand.  “You can always learn, can’t you?”  
  
This is more than dancing the edge; this is outright asking to be tossed over it.  They’ve been skirting this ever since Armando came back, and he thinks that nights like tonight might be the closest they’ll ever come to fixing whatever it is they are.  
  
“Can I?” Alex asks, frowning a little.  
  
“I think so,” Armando murmurs, thumb tracing the dimple in Alex’s chin.    
  
Alex makes a soft, broken-up noise in the back of his throat, all distress.  It breaks Armando’s heart, tightens his chest to hear it.    
  
“Tell me to stop, and I’ll stop,” Armando murmurs, shifting closer.  “That much I can promise you.”  
  
“What if I don’t want to stop?” Alex asks, plaintive, his low voice cracking a little.  “Isn’t that worse?”  
  
Armando shakes his head an kisses him, soft and quick and gentle.  “Not if we don’t think of it that way, hotshot.”  
  
God, he’s wanted this for so long, it feels like.  And he knows, he _knows_  that Alex wants it just as bad, has wanted it, has mourned it even before they could’ve had it.  
  
“I’m not — you know,” Alex says.  
  
Armando nods.  “I know.  You don’t have to be.”  
  
“But doesn’t it, doesn’t this make a…” he trails off, dropping his eyes, trailing off before he can say any of the awful words that Armando knows Alex has heard for things like this.  
  
“If it does, it doesn’t make it wrong.”  That much Armando’s sure of.  “If it was, don’t you think I would’ve adapted out of it by now?”  
  
Alex’s eyes widen in response, like he’d never considered that, and Armando almost wants to laugh.  As it is, he just smiles faintly.  Alex bites his lip, and it’s so easy to want him, it’s so easy that it hurts that he doesn’t know how to touch him, how not to scare him away.  
  
Armando traces that dimple again.  
  
“Could you —“ Alex swallows, like he’s gathering himself for one of his fights.  “Could you kiss me again?”  
  
It’s the easiest thing in the world to do, and this time Armando takes it slower, slipping his hand down to Alex’s waist.  It still only lasts a moment, though.  “How was that?” he asks, somehow a little breathless.  
  
Alex swallows again and licks that bruised lower lip a tiny bit.  “I want it,” he whispers.  
  
“So do I,” Armando whispers back.  He tips his forehead against Alex’s.  
  
“Can we — can we do this?” Alex asks, and it’s the honest question of someone who’s never considered a happy ending before.  “Even though — even though the whole world would hate us for it?”  
  
Armando squeezes his hip.  “I think we can,” he murmurs.  “I think it’s worth a shot.”  
  
Maybe it’s something in his expression, but Alex leans in this time, and the kiss is soft and warm and exploratory, like Alex is remembering how to do it.  
  
And maybe he is.  Maybe ‘this’ is more than kissing in the dim light of the kitchen.  Maybe ‘this’ is what Shaw killed, and it's coming back to life.    
  
Armando thinks it might be.


End file.
